"To the NEA, News-Laden NPR Is Making a Classical Mistake"

[CBHagman]

You have to hunt for it, but today's Washington Post had an article from Marc Fisher on a report by the National Endowment for the Arts that indicates National Public Radio has generally abandoned its previous mission to provide listeners with classical, jazz, and other forms of music neglected or ignored by commercial radio.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/10/AR2006111000286.html

A new report from the National Endowment for the Arts blasts public radio, saying it fails to fulfill its obligation to provide music that commercial stations won't touch. The NEA says public radio -- once dominated by classical, jazz and other minority forms of music -- is retreating ever further from that mission, choosing to focus on news and talk.

National Public Radio pleads guilty to using its new resources to build a stronger news operation, but rejects the NEA's notion that public radio is abandoning its cultural mission. Rather, NPR maintains, it plans to use the Web and other emerging technologies to introduce a new generation of listeners to music you can't hear on the radio.

The NEA study, prompted by the dramatic decline in classical programming, hits public radio especially hard for the practice of duplicating news programming on multiple stations in a single city. Washington is the prime example of that phenomenon, with formerly classical WETA (90.9 FM) airing the same NPR News programs at the same time as WAMU (88.5 FM).

What's doubly disappointing to me is that Ken Stern, who is currently the chief executive at
NPR, is apparently a Democrat. I had hoped someone like that wouldn't be a foe of cultural programming. Yes, a foe. Sorry, but despite his claims in the article, I see no evidence that NPR is making any effort to reach out to classical music fans and potential fans. I'm on every damn mailing and e-mail list that exists, and the only station that's made any effort to promote online music to me is the local commercial classical music radio station, WGMS.

And as for NPR in the DC area, I've watched in dismay as the local public radio stations abandoned folk, bluegrass, jazz, and classical music in favor of news and talk. Listeners raised an uproar every time, and the stations paid no attention. So I've withdrawn my support from WETA, which once aired classical music virtually every day. I do most of my classical music listening with WGMS and Classic Arts Showcase (the latter is shown on a local college TV station).

What about the rest of you?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. I've gone through this twice

In Portland in about 1997, the local NPR station, KOPB, decided to abandon music altogether and go 24-hour news and talk. The trouble was, they didn't even have enough programming to fill 24 hours, and their proposed schedule included running Morning Edition and All Things Considered twice. We had petitions and rallies like you wouldn't believe, and the station managers remained adamant that the all-talk format was "the wave of the future." In the end, their only concession was that the station agreed to run Performance Today on weekday mornings and keep its weekend schedule of Afropop Worldwide, The Thistle and the Shamrock, and a wonderful local eclectic program by an announcer named Steve Cantor.

There was another classical station in town, KBPS, which had just been cut loose from the Portland Public Schools, and the loss of classical programming on KOPB was the best thing that ever happened to KBPS. The first fund drive after the program change on KOPB, KBPS made in two days what it normally made in a week. (It's on the web at http://www.allclassical.org.) I volunteered for KBPS for nearly ten years, and it was a great experience. The announcers have complete freedom to program whatever they want within the classical genre, and they do a wonderful job of promoting local musicians.

Moving back to Minneapolis in 2003, I found two classical stations, one run by Minnesota Public Radio (KSJN) and one run by St. Olaf College in Northfield (WCAL). Of the two, WCAL was the more individualistic and quirky, and it also carried wonderful national programs such as Performance Today and From the Top.

However, Minnesota Public Radio bought WCAL from St. Olaf and turned it into The Current, a venue for new and local rock and singer-songwriter music. It's not BAD, but for me, it doesn't replace the old WCAL. Ironically, the latest Arbitron ratings show that it has a smaller audience than KSJN, which still plays classical music but of a somewhat tame variety and doesn't carry Performance Today or From the Top.

The radio scene in the Twin Cities also includes KBEM, an all-jazz station run by the public schools, and KFAI, an independent Pacifica-type station that carries a mix of left-leaning news and talk, folk music, indie rock music, and programming for different ethnic groups, including the local Somali and Hmong communities.

[CBHagman]

2. That sounds more vibrant than many areas.

Thanks for the account. It's good to hear of stations taking a programming stance different from either the talk-dominated or the safe, middle-of-the-road classical schedule.

[Mendocino]

3. My NPR station remains commited to classical.

WGTE 91.3 (Toledo Ohio area) I hope it stays that way. News and talk are fine in small doses. Just heard Piano Concerto in A Minor by Grieg. It may be my favorite classical piece.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

4. Baltimore's WJHU reaches some parts of the DC area...

Until someone ripped off my radio antenna on my car, I picked it up near College Park regularly. I tend to only listen to the radio in the car, or if there's a power outage. I still listen to Mary Cliff's show.

I rely more and more on the internet radio stations to hear new artists, then I'll buy cds of what I like.

[CBHagman]

5. I've got to get better radio equipment.

Or listen to stuff on the Internets. :-)

WGMS's signal has been so weak I can barely get it at home, and so far I can't get the Baltimore station. I listen to a lot of classical music samples online and of course have oodles of CDs, but my main joy, broadcast-wise, is Classic Arts Showcase, which one of our local college stations provides on its network in the middle of the night and most of the weekend. They play both vintage and new clips -- jazz, dance, symphony, chamber, opera, recitals, classic movie scenes, clips from documentaries, etc. They've even run Anna Russell!

http://www.classicartsshowcase.org/

[GoddessOfGuinness]

6. I used to watch Classic Arts when I'd get up in the middle of the night

with my youngest.

Once when he was about 2, he had the flu, and I had him just resting on the couch, while I changed his sheets. When I came back downstairs, he was giggling uncontrollably. He was watching a claymation clip of Tubby the Tuba... :-)